Thanks for the reminder...
I had that prog and forgot to use it. I was so wrapt up in the issue, and what I figured was the "real" solution, that I forgot about the tools I have already...problem is, I've got too many to remember
Be that as it may, again, I think I solved the problem. It appears that my logic was not too far off base.
No sooner had I "solved" the problem prior to my previous post, then it was back, on another reboot. So, my excitement was short lived.
As I referred to a "sequencing" suspicion in my last post...I persistently followed up on that by "observing" about 5 reboots and paid particular attention to the exact time the spectre appeared on the task bar. It was closely associated in time, to a particular desk top calendar...when the calendar appeared on the desktop, the ghost appeared in the task bar.
So, I began mucking about with it...and found that it would not respond to certain commands which told me that something was amiss. So, I reloaded the program, and the ghost disappeared on the next reboot.
I am holding my breath. If I don't return, you will know that I was successful.
So, what have I done...for our readers...various successful and then unsuccessful runs...
1. defrag ...did not work
2. debugged explorer.exe via Process Explorer ... tap on explorer.exe in Process Explorer with right mouse button and then go down to "debug" ...built into the shell ...worked, but not on a reboot
3. check disk ...worked, but not on a reboot
4. cleaned registry a few times with different programs in effort to repair file/path links ...did not work
5.
*** reloaded program ...worked but have not rebooted to make sure it will hold...
6. cleaned registry again, and established new restore point
7. prayed
8. crossed fingers
9. shut down... will get back to you...
Editing: Rebooted and no more ghosts on task bar...
It appears that by re-loading the program, the "missing link" was rebuilt.
Time will tell...:0
Editing: Sunday 07-15-07 > still working... So, I am going to assume that reloading the program, which I finally isolated, worked. For those of you have a program, including myself, on future occasions, we are going to need better luck to identify the offending dll, or file that had its link[s] broken. And a better/more efficient way of finding broken links exhibiting ghost issues. AND we are going to need to know where in the registry the setup/run files are located to determine
the sequence they load in, on startup. It is not enough to know where the "Run" folder is located... in my case nothing was in those folders... It must be somewhere else in memory...but where?